Well, a variety. We have hand knit product we knit out of yarn I spun on our farm from fiber off of our alpacas. We have home spun yarn, and raw alpaca fiber.

For example, here is an ear flap hat link to the ETSY page), I knit out of yarn I spun here at our farm off of one of our award winning alpacas, Tehya. She has always been one of my favorite girls, I've known her since the day she was born:

Monday, November 25, 2013

When we started our farm, we also started working with an accountant for our taxes. It has been a life saver!

The first year was a lot of work because we were not prepared for what all we needed to do. At tax time it was a rush to organize.

That first year I learned about each category we had on our taxes (such as "feed" for the animals, "show costs" and so forth). Each January at the beginning of a new year I write on envelopes for each category, then whenever I get a receipt, I put it in the right envelope. At tax time we only have to add it up! Easy!!!

This way we get our taxes done fast and are done with it before many people even start on theirs.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Those that are friends with me on Facebook will remember my story about this a couple weeks ago. The day this happened I screamed and screamed! I forgot about this picture until I was going through pictures on my phone to delete some and came across this and thought, yeah, that;s farm life.

Our house dog, Shadow, ran into the house with this in his mouth. When I screamed, he dropped it.

The funny part is that I was watching what it was, wondering if the animal was still alive. I was almost thankful to see half a critter LOL

Zack went outside to get our poop scooper and I scooped it up and disposed of it. Ah, life in the country.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Up to this point I haven't dyed yarn. I decided when we start our venture into alpacas and fiber and all that, that there was so much to do and learn that I wasn't going to get into dying. Natural colors are my thing.

Well, there is a time and place for everything and I decided to do something.

I read this blog post about dying with Kool Aid. I didn't use Kool Aid, instead I bought some food coloring (I wanted blue and I couldn't find a good blue Kool Aid color).

I didn't have an ice cube tray (these days with automatic ice makers I imagine I'm not the only one without them).

So I used some zip lock containers instead. I filled them with water, put different amounts of color drops in them:

Many of them were looking very dark, so I made a couple more lighter ones. I really want a variation of color in the yarn.

I put them in the freezer to freeze.

I then took my home spun yarn that I had already spun, washed and was hung dry.

I put the yarn in a mixture of 2 cups of white vinegar and 5 cups of cool water, and let it sit for 30 minutes (I read this is necessary to prime the yarn to absorb color). Of note, I read this only works on natural yarn (cotton or animal fibers).

After I soaked the yarn for 30 minutes in the vinegar and water, I think squeezed it out, and put it (still damp) into a glass pan.

I put the frozen dyed water on top:

The blog post I linked to shows that you can do this in the sun, let it sit outside in the sunshine. Well, we have a shortage of sunshine so I opted for the oven.

I put tin foil over the top of the glass pans, and had the oven on 285*

According to the other blog it should bake for about an hour. I was still waiting for the ice to finish melting and had to make dinner, so this is where I will end this blog post.

In my next post I'll show how I finished this - and if it turned out or not :)

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Here's the thing with fading fawn fiber: if you send it to a mill or card it up without forethought, all those various shades of fawn will blend together = one color. I have plenty of alpaca blankets that I could spin into yarn that are one solid color. They are beautiful and all, but I love, I LOVE, the various shades in a yarn. And with fading fawn, you can do that without using any dye. All natural.

So when I look at a fading fawn blanket:

I separate out areas of the same color, and I flick them into their own little cloud. I end up with a basket of small, different color clouds.

Oak Haven Alpacas, LLC, & Oak Haven Sheep, LLC

The Adventure of a Lifetime

Our farming adventure began with the purchase of 3 alpacas in the fall of 2007. This eventually grew to an alpaca farm that birthed 23 cria. While we averaged 20 alpacas on a farm at any given time, we hit a peek of over 30 alpacas. We were involved in every aspect of alpaca farming: from breeding decisions, birthing, to attending alpaca shows, and shearing our own alpacas along with making product from their luscious fiber (hand spinning yarn and knitting product). We participated in 24 alpaca shows, and became very involved in the alpaca community.

In 2013 we added hair sheep to our farm.

Throughout this process we continued to tweak and revise our business plan. Our business plan evolved over time, and in 2013 it became clear that our goal was to raise grass fed animals for human consumption. While the initial plan was for this to go along side of alpaca farming, we slowly came to the conclusion our adventure was going to take us somewhere else.

In 2013 we began to sell off our alpaca herd to begin our new adventure with grass fed sheep and cattle.

Our adventure is still unfolding, so please, join us in our adventure of a lifetime as our journey unfolds.